Missing in Malmö: The third Inspector Anita Sundström mystery (Inspector Anita Sundström mysteries) (28 page)

Lasse wasn’t in when she reached the apartment on Roskildevägen. There was a pile of mail on the kitchen table, which she didn’t feel she had time to open. She took a quick shower and changed into a clean pair of black jeans and a dark blue top. The wind off the Sound was colder than she had had to put up with on Tyneside, so she added a thick, blue polo-necked jersey to her downbeat ensemble. In search of food, she found the fridge nearly empty. She couldn’t suppress her annoyance at Lasse’s lack of action on the domestic front. He had nothing else to do all day so the least he could do was some basic shopping. She toasted some rather stale bread and smothered it in lingonberry jam while the coffee was percolating. She went through to the living room and turned on the TV. As she munched her toast, she sipped her deliciously strong coffee and watched the last ten minutes of some English property show. That was another British obsession she had become aware of during her time in London. Now Swedish television was full of these programmes – she knew more about housing in Sussex than she did in Småland. She was tempted to have a second coffee, but resisted the urge as she felt she’d better report to Moberg and get the ordeal over with. What she was going to have for supper that night, she had no idea.

‘Right, let’s go back to the night of Friday, September 28th,’ suggested Nordlund. ‘We know you were in Malmö that weekend. You’d come down to find Greta. By your own admission, you got into her apartment on the Saturday posing as her father. But did you see her the previous night?’

Björn didn’t answer. He gave an exasperated sideways glance at his lawyer but he didn’t seem to be getting much help from that quarter.

‘We believe she was raped in the apartment that night and then driven to the harbour, where she was strangled and dumped in the sea. Everything points to you, Professor Sundström, unless you can supply us with an alibi.’

When Björn did speak his tone was measured, his voice clear. ‘I can’t supply an alibi. I slept that night in my car, somewhere down near Limhamn.’

‘If that’s the best you can do, we might as well send you back to your cell and get the prosecutor to sort out the paperwork,’ scoffed Westermark.

Björn took a deep breath and said slowly and deliberately, ‘I did see Greta that night.’

Westermark was about to jump in when Nordlund held up a restraining hand. ‘Where?’

‘I found out where she lived through a student who was still in contact with her. I waited in the square opposite her apartment. She came back about ten. I followed her in.’

‘Are you sure you want to say any more?’ put in the lawyer.

Björn gave him a scathing look. ‘I waited until she had gone inside before I knocked on the door. To say that she wasn’t pleased to see me is an understatement. I persuaded her to let me in. I could tell she’d been drinking. She was never very good at holding her alcohol. I tried to plead with her to come back to Uppsala so we could start again.’

‘So much for you two being in love.’ Björn ignored Westermark’s sarcasm and didn’t rise to the bait.

‘We’d had a falling out. Things hadn’t been going well for a while. I admit I’d been getting too possessive. She just upped sticks and was gone. I had no idea where. I was frantic for weeks. She wouldn’t return my calls. I tried her friends but they wouldn’t tell me where she was. I think some of them genuinely didn’t know. Then I discovered she was in Malmö, which is why I came here.’

‘What happened in the apartment?’ Nordlund asked quietly.

‘Not much. She was drunk enough to have the courage to say all the things she hadn’t had the nerve to tell me in Uppsala. I was socially suffocating her, my behaviour was unreasonable. I can get angry at times, but I’ve never been violent.’

‘Until now,’ said Westermark leaning across the table.

‘I’ve never been violent,’ Björn repeated. ‘But I’m willing to make an exception for you.’

‘I hope you’re not threatening a police officer,’ Westermark smiled back.

‘The apartment?’ Nordlund urged. Westermark’s interventions weren’t helping.

‘After Greta told me exactly what she thought of me, I left. I could see that it was useless trying to have a conversation with her when she was in that state. Her parting shot was that she’d found someone else. I was too hurt to ask who this person was. I assume that’s who she’d been out drinking with that night.’

‘What time did you leave?’

‘I’m not sure. Probably about eleven. I went back to my car and drove to the sea. I spent the night in the car feeling sorry for myself.’

‘What about the next day?’

‘I went back to try and discuss the situation sensibly. I convinced myself it was the drink talking the night before, not the real Greta. No one answered the door. Just then, I saw the neighbour with a pushchair. She looked at me suspiciously. On an impulse, I pretended to be Greta’s father. It was the neighbour who suggested I borrow her key and let myself in and wait for her. I waited for about an hour. Then I drove back to Uppsala. When I heard nothing from her all week I came back. This time by train. I still had the key. She still wasn’t there. I was worried that I’d chased her away again. That’s why I approached Anita. If anybody could find her, I was sure she could. I gave her the neighbour’s key. You know the rest.’

‘I’m afraid I don’t believe a word of your story.’ Westermark was going in for the kill. ‘Except the bit about Greta telling you what she thought of you and you having a temper. Admit it, Sundström, you’re a control freak. And you’ve just given us a motive – jealousy, possessiveness or whatever. The way I see it is this. You find out where Greta lives. You confront her. She’s drunk, so you rape her. Probably horrified by what you’ve done, you take her down to the harbour in your car. After all, you’ve a lot to lose as a highfalutin Uppsala professor. You strangle her and chuck her in the sea. You go back the next morning because you realize that you might have left evidence in the apartment. You clean where you think you’ve been and you remove certain items to make it look as though she’d gone away. Then, the clever touch. A week later, you get Inspector Sundström to find your “missing” lover.’

Björn let him finish. ‘Two things, Inspector. Why did I need the neighbour’s key to get into the apartment? And, once in, why did you still find my fingerprints?’

‘That’s simple enough. You probably got rid of all Greta’s stuff when you dealt with the body. Bag, mobile phone, key, etcetera. Then it dawns on you that you’ve left a trail. You go back, get the neighbour’s key and then try and erase any evidence of your presence. Except that you’re an amateur. You don’t do it thoroughly enough. Whatever lies you’re trying to spin, there’s no escaping the fact that you raped and murdered Greta Jansson. You’re our man.’

With a look of exhilaration, Westermark pushed two small, transparent plastic bags across the table. Each contained a single gold hooped earring. He pointed at one. ‘This was found on Greta’s body. And this,’ he said, pointing to the other, ‘was found in your car.’

CHAPTER 39

‘How did it go with the chief inspector?’

Anita had returned to the sanctuary of her cramped office with its two desks. Hakim had looked goggle-eyed when she had popped her head in on the way to reporting to Moberg. He was still trawling the internet. Above his screen, stuck to the wall, he had three pictures of Carol Pew. The first was the one that Anita had sent over from North Shields. The other two were mock-ups of what she might look like now. Given that she was fifty-three, the techies had been generous with the ageing process. In the first version she still had her natural black hair, but they had allowed for a touch of grey creeping in. In the other picture she was blonde, which softened the features.

‘Could have been worse. He moaned a bit. Fortunately his mind is more on the Greta Jansson case.’

‘Westermark was cock-a-hoop when they brought in your husband... sorry, ex-husband. He’s being interviewed by Inspector Nordlund and Westermark right now, I think.’

She had to get hold of Lasse. What would he be thinking? It was an awful situation for him to cope with.

Anita forced herself to bring her thoughts back to the Todd case. She went on to explain all that had happened in England, including Weatherley’s doubts about Carol Pew’s involvement.

‘We may be back to square one on this. We have to find her. Or you do!’

Hakim raised his eyebrows wearily.

‘What you need is a coffee. So do I.’

Anita went to the kitchen to make up a pot. At moments like this the coffee machine wouldn’t suffice. It had to be really strong.

Nordlund walked past the kitchen door.

‘Hi, Anita. Welcome back.’

‘Hello, Henrik. I hear you’ve been busy.’

He shrugged his shoulders apologetically. ‘It’s not looking good for Björn. Do you want to see him? He’s downstairs.’

Anita shook her head. She couldn’t face it. Not at the moment.

‘I’ve got to go to a meeting in Prosecutor Blom’s office, along with the chief inspector and Karl. Look, are you doing anything this evening?’

‘No.’

‘Come for something to eat at my place. We can chat things over. We can catch up on each other’s investigations.’

Anita was taken by surprise. Despite Nordlund being friendly for a number of years, she had never been invited round to his apartment. He had shunned most work-related social events. He wasn’t a mixer.

‘Yes. That would be good.’

‘Eight, then.’

Anita returned to the office with two steaming coffees on a tray.

‘Anita!’ Hakim cried the moment she entered. She nearly dropped the tray. ‘I think I’ve found her.’

She quickly put the tray down on her desk, which was clear for a change, due to her being away. She squeezed next to Hakim and looked at the screen. He had enlarged a photograph accompanying a short article in
Ystads Allehanda
. It was an outdoor setting; there was a cobbled courtyard. The caption mentioned Hos Morten Café. Anita had been there on a couple of occasions. There was a jazz group playing – the Göran Brante Trio. It was someone in the audience sitting at one of the surrounding tables that Hakim was pointing to – a blonde woman smiling broadly. Hakim increased the size again, which made the face blur slightly. Anita looked intently at the faces stuck up on the wall and then back down to the image on the screen. The style of hair was different – the woman listening to the jazz had a short crop – but there was no mistaking the face. It was Carol Pew.

CHAPTER 40

Anita went by foot, clutching a bottle of Shiraz. At that time of the evening, the market in Möllevångstorget had packed up for the day. The square was dark, even though lights were blazing from many of the surrounding buildings. The oriental shops and restaurants were still doing brisk business along Simrishamnsgatan. She turned sharp left and up to the small roundabout in the middle of Kristianstadsgatan. It was at a cross roads, with blocks of apartments on three corners. On the fourth was the edge of Folkets Park. Underneath a canopy of trees, the popular park’s perimeter fence was used as a canvas for official graffiti artists. The early 1900s apartment buildings each had curved frontages, which mirrored the contours of the roundabout. In one – a tasteful combination of cream walls and rich red-tiled roof – opposite the park, Nordlund lived. Anita pressed the buzzer next to his name and the front door opened at her push. His apartment was on the second floor.

The apartment was as old-fashioned at she imagined it would be. Neat and tidy, it lacked frills. Hannah Nordlund had been a practical woman, not taken with fripperies. She had been a country girl, from what Anita remembered. And Henrik himself had been brought up on a Scanian farm. It was almost like a rural homestead in the middle of the city. Nordlund took Anita into the living room. There was an enormous beech sideboard against one wall, above which were a couple of ancestral portraits. A fire screen on the hearth displayed a faded tapestry of a wooded landscape, and there was an old, but good-quality, rug in the middle of the central area. The mantelpiece sported several framed photographs, mostly of Hannah, and one of a typical Scanian farm building with cobbled walls and an intricately thatched roof. It must have been taken in the 1920s. An old couple stood proudly outside the front door. They could have been 19th-century peasants.

‘My grandparents. That’s where I was brought up. Still in the family. My nephew now runs the farm, though my older brother keeps his hand in. It’s just a few kilometres north of Sjöbo.’ Nordlund had come in with a couple of glasses of white wine. ‘I haven’t exactly travelled far in my life.’

Anita accepted the wine and took a seat on the hard-backed sofa. Hannah hadn’t been one for comfort either.

‘But you’ve had a productive life. You don’t have to travel the world for that.’

Nordlund took a seat opposite in a high-backed wooden chair. It was well-worn and its arms were shiny from constant human contact. He stretched his long legs out.

‘Skål!’ He said raising his glass.

‘Skål!’

‘I think I’ve done a decent job as a policeman. But soon that will be in the past.’ He glanced across at one of the photos of Hannah. Though she was a plain woman, there was a smile playing on her lips that hinted at someone who hadn’t taken life totally seriously. She probably wouldn’t have let Henrik get too solemn, which he could at times. ‘I’ve no one to share the final years with now. We had so many plans.’

This was what had been worrying Anita ever since he had announced his retirement. What would he do?

‘There must be masses of things you can do. Maybe the travel you haven’t had time for up till now?’

‘Hannah and I had always planned to buy a boat. We were going to spend the whole of one summer sailing round the Stockholm archipelago and call in on some of the islands. I learned to sail when I was serving as a young policeman in Karlskrona. I started to teach Hannah down at Limhamn. I used to hire a boat. But then she became ill. We said we’d take it up again when she recovered...’

‘Why don’t you take me out for a sail some time?’

A hint of a smile crossed Nordlund’s face. ‘Do you mean that?’